Thursday, March 27, 2008

No, seriously. Well, sometimes. You can't deny that the Japanese has adopted and japanified a lot of western dishes such as the hamburger (no, seriously, what do they call a hamburger-with-buns in Japan?), and spaghetti is no exception.

Gardena is more of a korean town, but this little Japanese shop has been here for years. Apparently years ago it used to be a bakery also and sold pretty good bread and other baked goods. About two years ago they still had French bread but I didn't see any this time around. Now all they had are the cold dinner rolls that you probably just shouldn't eat. Unless you're really hungry.

Spoon House serves mainly spaghetti, with a sprinkle of other items. Don't get me wrong, they also serve more traditional, Italian spaghetti.Here's the Barca D'Oro, which still looks like a normal, Italian spaghetti. Described as "Italian sauce with seafood."For some odd reason I was craving eggs so I ordered the Napolitano with bacon and eggs. Kinda weird for spaghetti, isn't it? We're getting there. But I enjoyed it a lot.And there are plenty of other unique, and definitely more Japanese spaghetti offered that we did not get this time around, such as Cod Roe and Sea Urchin spaghetti, Natto&Shiso (seriously? yep), Squid& Wasabi, and even kim chi.

Unfortunately someone was eating the Barca D'Oro when we came and my friends decided that it looked really good, so that's what they got (so no picture of the more Japanese spaghettis this time).

Spoon House does not serve the highest quality ingredients imaginable, but they definitely serve really yummy, cheap, comfort food. Everything I've had here (minus the dinner rolls) have been really good, and I keep coming back for more.

The spaghetti here is always served al dente, and you can watch them cook it in this contraption that you can see from your seat:Each portion of spaghetti goes into each section for a specific time period. Pull the lever and the pasta will be drained and ready to be served. Neat.

I was looking forward to dessert this time, since I remembered the flan being really good here. Indeed, it was one of the better flans I've had. The ice cream goes well with it, although I could go with or without it.And we ordered some panna cotta too, don't know why. It was good, but not nearly as good as the flan.